


Superpowered Hitmen

by CreativeLiterature



Category: Fantastic Four, Hitman (Video Games), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, Self-Insert, Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:53:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28547436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CreativeLiterature/pseuds/CreativeLiterature
Summary: Friends become superpowered self-inserts and take on certain targets in the Hitman games.
Relationships: Original Female Character/John the Yoga Instructor, Original Male Character/Orson, Original Male Character/Rocco
Kudos: 2





	1. Prologue

Adam/MYSTIQUE

“Your target is Marco Abbiati,” spoke the voice in Adam’s ear, looking out over the promenade at the party set out in the town square, lights flashing and the voice of a talented singer echoing in the distance. “He’s a corrupt lawyer due to meet a client in the town hall. Subdue him any way you can, and get out quick, agent.”

Adam saw Marco posing for photos with a slim young girl, flashing her pearly whites for the camera. He made it opposite the mansion, where a clock tower stood beside where the offices of the environmental lawyer whom Marco was to meet.

“Any sign of Brovommo?” asked one bodyguard, suited all in black like his nearby countepart.

“None yet,” came the reply, as Adam strolled past, pretending to listen in. “We’ll track him down.”

Adam circled the clock tower, spotting a pipe he could climb once enough people stopped walking by and scaling it, slipping into the window to a bathroom. He emerged into a waiting room, picking the lock to enter the environmental lawyer’s office and saw a letter opener which he tucked into his belongings.

“... you’ve found him?” came a voice outside the double doors. “Send him up. I’ll contact Abiatti.”

Adam hid outside the window, letter opener poised as he heard several footsteps not too long after.

“... do you have a washroom?” Salvatore asked, as footsteps preceded his entry into the bathroom, glancing into the mirror before turning on the tap to wash his face.

Adam crept through the window, knocking Salvatore unconscious with ease and tossing his body outside the window so that it landed on the tiled roof outside. Glancing in the mirror, his hair became grey and wore glasses as his outfit became that of the lawyer, suit clothes and lumpy tummy and paunch. He emerged into the waiting room, where the bodyguard glanced up at his return.

“Thanks,” Adam gasped, shaking with nerves that only Salvatore felt, rubbing his glasses clean on a handkerchief secreted in his pocket.

“Sorry, sir, I have to search you,” said the bodyguard who waited outside the door.

“I understand,” Adam gulped, holding out his arms but remembering he held the letter opener in his pocket. As the bodyguard drew his hands close, Adam brought his knee into the man’s throat, gurgling for air as he drew the letter opener from his pocket, a swift end to the throat of the second bodyguard who stood by and a leaping triple kick into the third as he pulled his gun from its holster, as all three lay silently dead, blood dripping from the second.

“Damnit,” Adam swore, in Salvatore’s voice. He dragged the second into a toy bin, and the first and third into the bathroom and closed the door. Collecting the letter opener, he entered through the double doors, as Marco turned, a bodyguard at the other side of the doors.

“Ah, Brovommo,” Marco smiled like a crook. “I hope you don’t mind all the added security… “

“N-no problem,” Adam added nervously, as though waiting for the bodyguard to close the doors and did so himself. “I have something to say, Abiatti.”

“I bet you do,” Marco grinned churlishly. “You’ll give in, in the end. My plans will continue unthwarted, if you so please.”

“No,” Adam replied, his skin flickering back into its familiar blue tinge. “I think not - “

His hand went to the letter opener in his pocket, flinging it at the bodyguard whose drawn pistol went awry as blood splattered the books from the gaping neck wound, as Adam leapt upon Abiatti who gave a yell as Adam grabbed the ballpoint pen from the desk and stabbed him repeatedly. The double doors burst open and in ran two bodyguards, weapons drawn.

“You - “ shouted one, as both aimed their pistols to fire.

“Me,” Adam spat, leaping out of the open window and into that of a bodyguard, startling several citizens who spat out their sandwiches and leapt to a cry, as Adam ran for the car parked on the sidewalk outside the mansion, hooked it into drive and sped off.


	2. Sapienza

Adam/MYSTIQUE

“Rocco!” cried a woman who could only be identified as his sister. “Get down here this minute! You’ll be late for work!”

“Relax… “ Rocco began, as Adam entered the walk up apartment, climbing the stairs until he reached the third floor, ringing the doorbell.

At once, his body and voice changed to be that of a young woman, most desperately in need with wet stained clothes and brunette hair, a vixen who stood before Rocco who answered his door, in a singlet and boxer shorts whose bulge considerably grew.

“Whoa,” he stumbled.

“Excuse me,” Adam spoke in perfect Italian. “My sink is overflowing. I wonder if you might help?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Rocco bounded beside Adam, leading him into the second floor apartment where the sink was indeed overflowing, and Rocco found a wrench underneath the sink cupboard where he screwed it right again.

“Thank you,” Adam was benevolently grateful. “I shall know to come to you again if I need further help.”

“Please do,” Rocco smirked. “You new here?”

“Oh, yes,” Adam toweled his hair dry, in the clinging black dress he wore, bare feet on the wooden flooring that he knew Rocco was checking out. “I begin work at the Caruso villa as a housekeeper today.”

“No way!” he replied. “I’m a kitchen hand. New hire.”

“That’s wonderful,” Adam smiled. “Someone new to know already.”

“Yeah,” Rocco loitered. “Let me know if your pipes need fixing.”

“I shall,” Adam smiled, closing the door on him.

Clara/SHADOWCAT

“Jeez, Adam,” Clara appeared all of a sudden in Adam’s room, waterlogged from the kitchen who morphed in shock back to his original, blue-skinned visage. “Get a room.”

“This is my room,” Adam stated rather bluntly, as Clara toyed with his things.

“So what do we have to do?” Clara asked. “Kill these guys?”

“Yes,” Adam breathed more steadily. “Senor Caruso, who owns the mansion and DeSantis, lead researcher of the virus housed within an underground cove beneath.”

“I’ll get there easily enough,” Clara yawned.

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

“Give me some!” Max demanded of the bohemian who passed over his joint, in his apartment atop the law offices beside the clock tower, the room smoky with incense and music and hemp and musk. “You wanna see something cool?”

Max glanced out the ajar circular window as the bohemian nodded his head to the beat of the drums. He focused on the balcony of the mansion across the road, and teleported in a whiff of burnt smoke atop the roof, where he could see Caruso swinging his golf club on the green and whacking the ball.

His ears picked up DeSantis’ voice, talking on the cellphone where he glanced over and saw her under the shade of a pot plant tree, two mansion bodyguards loitering near.

“... I’ll handle him,” replied DeSantis, heading back into the house.

Max dropped down into a sort of balcony area, glancing through the window to teleport inside DeSantis’ store room, where he found a lab access key card. He pocketed it anyway and listened at the keyhole, glancing inside to see DeSantis in her big white lab coat, surveying some documents on her desk as a mansion guard stood outside and another inside, closing the doors to cement the heat.

Grace/ROGUE

“Oh, shit,” Grace bent to grab the dropped cell phone as it rang, but a kindly scientist helped pick it up, both in white lab coats as they together rose, in the concealed environment of the laboratory filled with specimens under microscope and lock and key.

“Thanks,” Grace sniffed, always careful to wear gloves as the man turned back to his inspections. She excused herself outside the lab, where a big cavern engulfed all her surroundings amid a containment section for the virus, several body-armored guards toting shotguns and scientists milling about, and a plane nearby in case of departure.

“Grace?” came Zoe’s gruff voice. “It’s time.”

“OK,” Grace wiped her brow, sweaty as she hung up. She emerged into the laboratory, passing through to where the hazmat suits were kept as a man in one nodded before heading for the showers outside, the door closing with a quiet snap behind him.

Adam/MYSTIQUE

As the sultry Italian vixen, Adam stirred from the bedside of Rocco who lay snoring, swiping his key card while he was at it and changing into the disguise of a housekeeper, gaining access from the side door and entering the mansion’s outer walls, where he made it down a corridor, up a flight of stairs and across to where he could gain access to the top level.

“Ah, excuse me,” a mansion guard held up his hand. “If you wanna go any further, I’m gonna have to search you.”

“Of course,” Adam raised his arms, so that the mansion guard’s hands only barely touched the vixen’s breasts and legs, encased nonetheless in drab housekeeper’s gear.

“That’s, uh, it,” the mansion guard let Adam pass, inhaling the perfume and sighing despondent as Adam rose the stairs and waited outside the L-shaped corridor, where a lone guard stood outside Caruso’s rooms.

“You can’t come in here,” the guard shook his head, at Adam’s curvy posture.

Shots were fired and Adam instinctively crouched in fear, as the guard drew his gun and ran past, the guards in the living room making movement within their glass doors.

“Stay here,” ordered the guard, as Adam nodded numbly, wondering who possibly could’ve fucked up.

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

Only a minute previous, Max had teleported into where DeSantis was perusing documents at her desk, grabbing the letter opener nearby and holding it to her throat, while her guard drew his gun shakingly, wondering how a man appeared out of nowhere.

“Drop it or I’ll kill her!” Max threatened, eyes glowing a steely blue.

Stammering, the guard lowered his gun to the ground and kept his hands raised, but Max saw out of the corner of his eye, the guard standing outside he had missed, whose gun was aimed and fired at Max just as he teleported out of harm’s way, outside to where the guard had fired and jabbing him in the neck with the letter opener.

“Help! I need help!” DeSantis shrieked from within her office, massaging her throat. The guard in the room with her scrambled for his pistol and aimed for the window outside but his friend lay clutching his neck in death throes, while in a puff of burned smoke the intruder had disappeared.

Adam/MYSTIQUE

Adam burst in, not holding a pistol like the others but changed into a mansion guard with glasses to hide the generic face, as DeSantis jabbed accusatory fingers and yelled at the lack of security, her hands still shaking from the letter opener that had been held at her throat while the guard outside lay dead, the doors to the balcony flung open.

“All of a sudden he appeared!” DeSantis stamped her foot.

“DeSantis is correct,” replied the other mansion guard to witness. “Like a shadow…”

“Take me to the lab,” DeSantis ordered. “Order the lockdown and have the virus contained. I want to be on the sea plane.”

Grace/ROGUE

Grace donned one of the hazmat suits gingerly, stepping through the rarefied tunnel into the section where the virus was held. Three workers in hazmat suits tended to duties around the lab where in the centre pipe the virus was contained, while the fourth was showering off site.

All of a sudden, the alarm blared and Grace cringed, thinking she had caused it.

“Evacuate!” cried one of the men, ushering her along but she remained behind, tapping on the dial and instructing the virus to self detonate. She hurried with all of them, through the tunnel and near the showers where all of them were huddled.

“Everyone here?” asked the guard with the shotgun. “There’s an intruder. We’ve been ordered to standby until DeSantis arrives - “

He touched his earpiece and Grace surreptitiously removed the glove from her hazmat suit as he looked grave.

“The virus has been destroyed?” the man looked to all the staff, then Grace who was fiddling. “You!”

“Me?” Grace chirped, the man accosting her. She touched his hand and he took a deep sucking in motion, as though struggling for breath and then fell, wriggling and unconscious.

“You did that!” accused one of the scientists she had worked alongside.

“Huh?” Grace reddened. “No I didn’t!”

Adrift in a sea of suspicion, Grace fled for the cave walls, hiding amidst a fallen gas tank and cowering as screams and accusations and heavy footsteps and guns being toting wrent the air.

She screamed but for hands grabbing her body and covering her mouth, suddenly pulled from behind through something solid where the alarm sirens silenced at once and she saw she was in a dark tunnel, the sunshine peeking through with Clara glancing down at her.

“What were you doing?” Clara frowned. “I was about to come rescue you.”

Grace realised she had been sucked through the other side of the wall, and the gulls flew over the dock nearby.

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

From atop the roof where he had narrowly escaped DeSantis’ men, he saw Caruso running towards the rec room with his guards in tow. He teleported on top of the roof, bursting through a door and creeping down the stairs, as Caruso did so a few steps before him.

Peeking round the last set of stairs, he heard a keycard swipe and glanced to see the back of Caruso, followed by three or four men as he glimpsed the cavern before the door shut on him.

Focusing hard, he waited for an appropriate amount of time and teleported within, just to see Caruso and his men turning the corner to flee for the plane.

Adam/MYSTIQUE

As DeSantis burst into a supply closet of sorts, headed for the stairs which led down into the garage, Adam grabbed the mansion guard in front of him and stole his pistol with his dexterity, firing on the two in front and DeSantis who hollered as she was pelted with bullets. Filching her keycard, Adam promptly changed into a picture perfect copy of DeSantis, hurrying downstairs only to barge into the mansion guard down below with his gun drawn, and the two Kevlar-vested men with shotguns who held their ground.

“One’s down but there’s another in a different part of the mansion,” Adam gasped. “Form my escort!”

“Y-yes,” the mansion guard hurried, as Adam produced the key card while the two guarding the door held cover.

Adam headed down the tunnel, only to see Max creeping in the shadows, who turned at the sound of footsteps to see his mark with a single mansion guard - 

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

“No!” DeSantis cried, as Max teleported to knock the gun out of the mansion guard’s hand and aim at what he saw was Adam, blue skin and all.

“Jeez, cocka!” Max said in despair, ducking from the savage blow from his opposition and knocking him out with a well timed punch.

“Let’s go,” Adam hurried beside Max, who ran with the guard’s pistol. “The virus is destroyed and the real DeSantis dead. Where’s Caruso?”

“There,” Max narrowed his eyes to see Caruso boarding the sea plane, with the better part of a dozen armed guards waiting on DeSantis.

“I’ll go,” Adam resumed his persona as DeSantis, taking Max’s pistol and hurrying down the stairs while Max watched DeSantis hurry and almost trip in character and in her haste to reach the sea plane.

Clara/SHADOWCAT

“Come on,” Clara helped Grace into the waiting boat.

“What about the others?” Grace fretted.

“There’s other ways to escape,” Clara told her. “Zoe says we have to leave - “

Clara and Grace watched as the sea plane rounded the harbour, gathering speed.

“Shit,” Clara swore. “Fuck!”

Adam/MYSTIQUE

Within the seaplane, Caruso breathed a sigh of relief.

“The virus is gone,” he lamented.

“And so are you,” Adam drew a gun on him, firing and throwing his corpse out of the window. As the sea plane continued to rise, he heard an audible bump atop the sea plane, that of Max teleporting on top.

Grace/ROGUE

“They made it!” Grace gasped, her boat speeding towards the sea plane where Adam allowed Max inside.

“I’ve got a cooler ride, dick,” Clara said, looking like one of Charlie’s Angels.

“Nah, let me drive,” Max pushed Adam from the controls, who had become blue like his original form.

Adam/MYSTIQUE

“Oh, Rocco,” Adam crooned, watching out the passenger seat of the sea plane, taking into the air as Clara steered the boat with Grace looking forlorn beside her.

“You want to take him with us?” Max asked.

“No,” Adam lamented, a lover’s sigh. “I have to let him go.”


	3. Whittleton Creek

Adam/MYSTIQUE

“You don’t even need to come on this mission, cocka,” Clara paged through her radio. “We don’t need you here.”

“I’ll try my best,” Adam told her affably, as he stepped out of the sedan and onto Whittleton Creek. Suburban, two-storied houses lined the grove while neighbors chatted to one another, and smoke rising from somebody’s backyard whirled into the air.

“Your mission is to kill Janus, an old man holed up with his security team,” Zoe paged into all their comms. “There’s also his head of security who lives across the block who wants tabs kept on every neighbor and his home.”

“Got it,” Adam replied.

Clara/SHADOWCAT

“I’ll go to the backyard party and keep an eye on things,” Clara paged in.

Dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans, Clara nodded to the civilians atop the porch and moved through the gate and into the backyard, where a buxom blonde in a red and white polkadot dress was introducing herself to their new neighbors.

“Well-come!” she cried upon seeing Clara, perfume overwhelming as she shined her pearly whites. “You must be the new neighbor!”

“Just bought it,” Clara quipped, regarding the home adjacent to this one which was newly purchased by her firm.

“It’s such a nice property,” the woman gushed, then wondered if this girl would be an envy. “Take your time, meet some fellas!”

Clara brushed her off when polite and scanned the denizens, men with wives especially glancing her way and those who were single knew to back off from a single glance.

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

Max was in the park when he received the comms, but snuck into the brush that decorated the backs of the houses amidst where the head of security lived. Within the brush, he leapt over the fence where he came into an eccentric’s property, and beside that was an open window on the second storey of the property opposite.

“Show time,” Max grinned, teleporting at once in a puff of burnt smoke, into the room and hiding just in time behind a rack of weaponry as a security guard perused the room, leaving once more to close the door behind him.

Within the room were paned glass displays, alarmed from a quick look containing weapons within.

Grace/ROGUE

“Are they going to be OK?” Grace asked, sitting in the van parked near the exit to the little block of homes, where in the back Zoe typed on the computer rapidly.

“Course,” she quipped back, and Grace stilled her heart though doubt did little to quell it.

Adam/MYSTIQUE

Adam had made note of Janus’ physical therapist out feeding ducks with scraps of bread, and made his way up to Janus’ front porch once he had discreetly changed into the blue slacks and apron and physique that perfectly represented the man’s image.

“Hey, Mr Therapist man, one sec,” spoke the guard at the front door. “I have to pat you down, first.”

Hands went over every inch of body; luckily this time, Adam had not stored any contraband worth detecting.

“There ya are, go on ahead,” the security guard nodded and went back to his position.

Adam opened the front door and came face-to-face with Janus, an old man quivering with his lack of physique and old man slacks.

“There you are, you took your time,” Janus needed no other wordless reply than to come on command as he turned and headed back upstairs. His lone security escort kept an eye on Adam who followed behind; the downstairs living room patrolled with a couple agents as were the upper levels.

“Hold it,” Adam’s heart stilled as Janus continued to walk into his bedroom, but his escort held up a hand. “I don’t recognise you. And I don’t trust you. Before we can do anything, I want to check your file. Understand?”

Two security guards in addition had turned to face Adam. Three guards would be an effort, and he felt he could handle them. So he nodded and went into the library which was locked behind him, and he heard the escort’s footsteps pad down the carpeted corridor.

“Zoe,” Adam paged immediately. “Janus’ security guard is about to run a check on me. Can you hack into his computer?”

Clara/SHADOWCAT

“Got it,” Clara touched her comms, near her earring.

She made her way back to the front porch, where she saw Grace walking along the footpath, headed to her house and trying not to make eye contact with anyone. Clara watched Grace who took a half-eaten candy bar from her pocket and chucked it near the garbage bin parked at the kerb.

“Hey, that’s littering!” called one of the people atop the porch, enjoying their schmoozing and cocktails.

Grace stonily continued on, while Clara bent to pick up the candy wrapper; within was a USB drive.

“Can you make it?” Zoe asked, as Grace entered Clara’s house, and Clara sized up the Janus house across the block.

“I’ll manage,” Clara grit her teeth, inserting herself back into the backyard of the neighbor holding the party, and sneaking downstairs where the basement door was locked.

She phased through the door where it looked like any other ordinary basement, but she ran ahead at the wall and kept running, fright taking her through solid walls and sewage tunnels and darkness until she arrived in Janus’ basement, where a communist spike decorated a desk, busts of Russian officials were about and a security guard turned to spot her.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, drawing his pistol. “How did you get in here?”

Clara dropped to the floor, her hands over her head. Almost suspicious of this quick surrender, the man walked closer until his arm reached to grab hers, and she phased through to grab his nuts, and he yelled in pain and she threw herself up, a kick to his shin and his side and to his head until he fell quite insensate upon the ground.

Clara rushed to the server in the basement and plugged in the USB, watching the light turn green to indicate the files had been uploaded.

“Done,” Clara breathed a sigh of relief, hating herself for having been caught at the same time.

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

Max wanted a shoot out, but knew it might end badly for him, and not just as the receiving end of Zoe’s rebukes which were sure to follow.

He glanced out the window, where he could see the head of security with an armed bodyguard glancing over Clara’s house, which from his post he could see Grace upstairs, biting her nails as she glanced at the party still happening.

The head of security made some motions, and his armed escort nodded, and the two went separate ways - the head of security headed back to his house, while the escort went up and rang the doorbell, or so he thought, until he disappeared within and Grace, upstairs, was none the wiser.

“Fuck,” Max spat. “Grace, you’ve got a house intruder.”

Grace/ROGUE

Grace gasped, in the empty bedroom as were all the rooms having yet to be filled with furniture, as Zoe’s voice came in on the comms.

“Max, stay where you are,” Zoe cautioned. “We need to get the head of security discreetly. Grace, find somewhere to hide, quick.”

Grace did as bid, hiding within a closet as she heard footsteps on the landing. Muffled by the carpet, she nonetheless heard the door open, and glancing around the security guard nodded to himself that the room was empty.

From where she hid, Grace could see the man glance to the party.

“The home owner’s still at the BBQ,” the guard paged into his radio.

“Check the basement,” came the head of security’s voice, more of an order.

“Yes sir,” the guard replied, switching off his radio just as Grace let out a fart.

“Oh no!” Grace gasped, wafting it away as though that might help, when the closet was wrenched open and she came face to face with the gritted teeth of the security guard, all in black with a tie and shades and a gun held to her head.

“Aaah!” Grace made to scream but hands were pressed to her mouth.

The guard convulsed when he touched her skin, and he fell to the ground unconscious. Breathing heavily, Grace took his gun and paged Zoe.

“Put his body in the closet,” Zoe ordered. “There’s no other way to help it.”

“OK,” Grace gulped and nodded numbly, moving him into the closet. She clicked the closet doors closed and breathed a sigh of relief.

Adam/MYSTIQUE

In the room, Adam saw the door open and the security guard enter.

“You’re all clear,” he led the way. “Sorry for the confusion.”

“It’s alright,” Adam kept his sigh inward as he followed the guard into Janus’ room, where the old man was sitting at his chair prepared to receive his meds.

“Now, Mr Janus,” Adam tried to speak authoritatively. “You’re feeling chest pains?”

“I should be at my age,” chuckled the old man, as the security guard closed the bedroom door for privacy. He peered up at Adam with a canny glint in his eye. “Don’t happen to smoke, do ya?”

“No,” Adam shook his head, hating the things as the old man chuckled to himself.

“Oh, well,” shrugged Janus, glancing at his escort. “Gotta try, huh?”

Adam retrieved the capsule of pills from his pocket, apportioning out an appropriate amount and handing them to Janus on a plate. He turned to the table to hand Janus a bottle of water - 

“Don’t move,” ordered the guard quietly, who had his pistol trained on Adam.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Janus demanded, who already had the pills in his mouth, somewhat gargling. He spat them onto the tray. “I thought you had him cleared?”

Adam froze as the guard moved closer, but nowhere near melee range.

“A guard reported he found another unconscious in the basement,” Adam’s blood pressure rose. “And a flash drive in the server, likely to impersonate the therapist. He’s got backup - “

Adam grabbed the tray containing the pills and hurled it at the guard, knocking him off kilter but his gun still fired into the ceiling and the crescendo awoke the neighborhood.

“Time to die, old man,” Adam uttered, shouts from Zoe in his comms about the lack of discretion while he twisted Janus’ neck, in time for two security guards to burst in and witness the carnage.

“Shoot him!” the guards ordered, raising their pistols as Adam leapt out the window, a bullet lodging in his shoulder as blue reamed over his body, and he stumbled out onto the porch and fell into the front bushes, unconscious.

Clara/SHADOWCAT

Clara froze to hear the bullets from the Janus household, and knew she could do naught but flee as did all the guests, as the woman in the polkadot, distressed and despairing, fled back into her home.

Clara headed back into her home, to meet Grace who was running down the stairs.

“What happened?” Grace asked, big eyed as Clara shook her head.

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

From when the shots were fired, Max heard the head of security pause from atop the staircase where he was about to enter the weapons display room where Max was hidden.

“Something’s gone wrong,” the head of security echoed, in shock. “Search Janus’ house, and the new one. He hasn’t paged back - “

Max had to tense and know that he couldn’t fight the many security agents now following their head downstairs and spreading out into the suburb. Still, he smashed the glass to retrieve himself a scoped SMG, and moved through to another room, to overlook Clara’s house and that of the fleeing party, to see the head of security moving through the panicked throng into the BBQ backyard.

“Say good night,” Max aimed the scope, and fired so that the head of security fell silent, amid the alarm blaring shrilly in his head. He paged Zoe as further chaos broke out. “Where’s Adam?”

“Get in the van,” Zoe ordered. “All of you!”

Grace/ROGUE

“We can’t,” Grace panicked, with Clara beside her. “The men outside will suspect us!”

Guards with pistols swarmed the suburb, more than civilians who rushed to neighbor’s basements or garages should they not be able to safely reach their home.

“Aah!” Grace gasped, to see Max suddenly in the living room.

“Come on,” Max moved on them, taking both their wrists as they teleported from the house to inside the van, packed as it was with computer equipment.

“Find Adam,” Zoe was all fury as Max nodded, leaving Clara to conclude it was all cocka’s fault, and Grace to worry nonetheless.

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

Max teleported atop the muffin lady’s house, neighbor to Janus’. His property was swarming with agents, and a shattered glass window from the front, but there was no sign of him.

“Over here!” called one of the guards, whose presence Max snapped to as Adam was dragged from the bushes, all in scaly blue as per his original countenance. “What the fuck is this freak?”

As security guards swarmed on Adam, Max could not be confident he could teleport him away in time before getting shot at by half a dozen men.

“Put him in the basement,” ordered one of the guards. “I’ve just been told the head of security’s been wiped out. We may have multiple bogies.”

“Max,” Zoe paged him. “There’s a connecting entrance underneath the house you’re on into Janus’ basement.”

“Got it,” Max glanced over the roof, and teleported into the downstairs crevice from where the basement was accessed. Glancing through the locked keyhole, he could see the muffin lady sheltering with some of her kitchen help, cowering and calling for local police aid.

In a puff of burned smoke, Max teleported into the basement with it in mind, as the sheltered few gasped and shrieked in terror.

“Don’t move,” he ordered, as they numbly nodded, clearly aware this psychopathic, superhuman freak could do them all in as easily as blink. “If I come back and you’re not here… “

They nodded numbly.

“Where’s the secret entrance?” he demanded, turning to them with a feral gaze.

“The - the book,” gasped the muffin lady, pointing to a bookcase. “The green one with the golden spine - “

She watched as Max pulled it and the wood slid aside to reveal a hollow, echoing chamber. The doorbell rang from above.

“That’s local police,” Max told her.

“I won’t tell them - anything,” she gulped.

“Good,” Max nodded, appearing and re-appearing close to her. “Or else.”

Clara/SHADOWCAT

“Come on, come on,” Zoe bit her fingernails, Grace aping her action while Clara sat in the passenger seat, jumping in alarm to see the local police banging on the door.

“Ma’am?” the officer asked. “It’s safe to come out now. We’ve got the situation under control.”

“Did you find him?” Clara shouted, not willing to unlock the door nor roll down the window.

“It’s all under control,” the officer repeated. “He’s been held until the convoy arrives to arrest him. Now come on out, miss.”

“No,” Clara reaffirmed. “I’m staying here.”

“Officer,” strolled into sight two suited security guards, understandably tense given the recent chaos. “What seems to be the problem here?”

“Nothing in your jurisdiction - “ the police officer was shut up as the security guard banged on the door.

“Miss, forcible entry was used to break into your house, you’re the only resident missing,” spoke the security guard. “Please comply with our orders!”

“Fine,” Clara got out of the van, slamming the door which seemed to spark a query in his line of the security guard’s brow.

“Hold on,” the security guard ordered. He spoke in an undertone to his peers which Clara couldn’t quite catch. “Why were you hiding in the passenger side if this is your van?”

“Hands up!” the officer clocked on, raising his pistol as did the other two guards, and Clara was frozen.

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

Max crept down the passageway, confident that the muffin lady would keep his presence here a secret. He continued until the passageway snaked underneath Janus’ house, and he knew it when he saw a button for a large door disguised in cement before him.

Pressing his ear to the wall he could not hear anything, but when he pressed the button anyone within would hear the opening and he would have but seconds to make action.

Grace/ROGUE

“I need to help her!” Grace shrieked, but Zoe held her close.

“No,” Zoe affirmed. “By now they’ll know who is and isn’t a resident. Your presence makes you more suspicious, especially since witnesses will have seen you around the block.”

“They’re gonna kill her!” Grace screamed, but the officers heard them.

“Open the van,” came the snarling order of the security guard.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Clara quipped.

“Quiet!” ordered the officer, wanting nuts that hung as big as the security officers.

“What are we gonna do?” Grace tensed, as footsteps came round the back and the handle lifted - 

Clara/SHADOWCAT

With her hands handcuffed behind her back, the officer keeping an eye on her with his pistol raised, and one of the security guards casing the van while the other approached the back, Clara phased out of the handcuffs and punched the officer square in the nose, grabbing his pistol and aiming through the van door window to the other side, where the guard ducked in time before she could fire.

She turned her aim to the security guard who had gone to the back of the van and aimed his pistol, but as he fired the bullet phased through her and she fired so that blood splattered the black of his suit and he fell.

“Backup!” cried the guard on the other side of the van. “We have their getaway van!”

Adam/MYSTIQUE

Adam stirred in the basement, hands cuffed with multiple guards around him. One spat to see him stir, in the blue of his outer shell.

“Don’t move!” ordered the security guard, as the shifting of weight came from somewhere far off, and the smell of burned smoke was apparent to see Max flying kick into a guard, disappear and reappear as quickly to choke hold a second and grab his gun to fire on a third.

“Max!” Adam’s face flooded with relief, as Max sternly marched towards him with the keys to his cuffs, and his hands broke free.

“I’ve got him,” Max paged Zoe.

“The van’s surrounded,” Zoe warned him. “We need an extract.”

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

Max grabbed Adam and teleported atop a house near where the van was parked. Adam tried not to retch from the acrid smoke, while Max watched as Clara downed a security guard who emerged from the side of the van, bullets phasing through her like nothing.

“Grab the others,” Max paged Clara. “I’m gonna teleport you all.”

Grace/ROGUE

Grace saw a hand like a ghost reach through the van, palm held out expectantly and Grace took it, but glanced to Zoe who moved towards the driver’s seat. Grace was pulled through the side to where Clara held a gun, tense for confrontation.

Bullets peppered the van though any that happened to arc towards them simply phased through so long as Clara held her hand.

“Zoe - “ Grace erupted.

“I’m taking the van,” Zoe said grimly through the comms, as the engine started and the van began to rattle, wheels churning.

Max appeared in a puff of black smoke, Adam on one hand and then all four of them linked hands, as bullets went through them all.

“Go!” Clara shouted, as Max paused in noticing Zoe was not there and teleported, all four of them disappearing at once.

Zoe

“Go, go, go!” shouted the officers and security guards, upon realising the threats had all of a sudden disappeared, but noticing Zoe’s red hair in the driver’s seat and concluding they all had somehow hidden in the back.

“Not on my watch,” Zoe said, turning the vehicle around as bullets meant to shatter glass did no such thing as it was bulletproof, and as the van turned around to the exit lane which led out of Whittleton Creek, blaring sirens and convoys made their way towards her.

Jeeps packed full with officers with assault rifles and shotguns had made a cordon just behind from where they departed, such that to Zoe’s rear was the suburb where they had made such a mess, and in front was an implacable cordon of riot vehicles and opposition.

“Stop the van!” blared the loudspeaker, as the vehicles came to a screeching halt, and rifles and shotguns were aimed at the van. Though the windshield had been made clear to conclude penetrative bullets were not enough, circling the vehicle were plenty of officers quite prepared to throw a grenade if need be.

Zoe let out a yelp to feel a cold hand on her leg, pulling her beneath solid ground and into the sewers, where she met the gaze of Clara and the others, amid the stinking black brick, where waste toiled down through caged circular pipes, and the echo of only their presence louder than the sirens or loudspeaker had been.

“Why - “ Zoe went red. “That’s my computer equipment up there!”

Up above, the police officers swarmed the van and saw the servers and computer hardware within. Mystified at the scaly blue monster who could feign disguises, at the new neighbor who had been able to shrug aside bullets, at what the muffin lady called a man who could teleport at will, and what was now their complete departure the officers handed the computers over to evidence.

“We need to find out who the hell these people are,” spoke the police captain.


	4. Miami

SOPHIE/Invisible Woman

“I’m not sure I can do this, guys,” Sophie quivered, as the car pulled up outside the Miami expo, where as she got out she sweltered in the heat, the whirring of race cars surprising her a little, and the crowds more than a little congested.

“You’ll do it,” her older sister bit sharply in her ear. “Go find the Kronstadt building.”

Sophie closed off the comms from Cassandra and made her way through the crowd, where a line had formed albeit a messy one to compete for bag check and pat downs. To one side were a set of stairs which she went down, past a man playing a didgeridoo but she had no coins to give him, and up the stairs at the end of the passageway and into bright sunlight, where several water fountains played as a kid might running laughing through him, and this caused Sophie to stop and giggle at the thought.

“Get a move on,” Cassandra barked.

Ruminating with petulance, Sophie walked up the steps into the Kronstadt building, where there was a reception desk staffed by pretty young girls like herself, with a couple security guards nearby.

“Welcome!” called one from afar.

Sophie smiled at them and walked to the coat check, then down a hallway where almost all the doors were either locked or secured by key card. The only one available to her was the toilet, where she furtively glanced over her shoulder and saw that nobody was there.

“I’m going,” Sophie radioed in, light sweeping through her body and she glanced at her hands to make sure she was invisible.

The door ahead of her needed a keycard, but Sophie produced an electronic master card which fizzed as she swiped it and became inert. The door swung open and Sophie, who hid her shoes in a corner so her steps might be more quiet in socks, found herself in a corridor where stairs led both up and down.

She went upstairs, where a camera swiveled but took in naught of her, and she was on a level where researchers and guards patrolled alike. She made her way round the other side of the building, making sure not to bump into anyone or anything, and found the staircase leading up into the top level. Here she came across a guard lounging against the wall, with a SMG strapped to him nonetheless.

Squeaking like a mouse, she moved past him and through the open double doors onto the top floor, where corridors wrapped around an inward patio balcony, and the security presence here was more pronounced.

“Do you see Robert Knox?” Cassandra demanded.

Sophie could not speak, so she continued down the hallway, where Knox’s office was guarded by two men. In she slipped, spotting the man himself perusing some documents explained to him by a researcher.

“I don’t want to hear it!” came Robert Knox’s rage, as vivacious as his charisma when the cameras were turned on him. “Do it better or there won’t be a next time!”

“Yes, Mr Knox,” replied the researcher swelteringly, mopping his brow.

Sophie crept to Knox’s desk, where on the wall panel nearby was a control used to regulate the fan services in the room. She glanced to the other side of the desk where a security guard in black tie was glancing out the window, hands behind his back. Surely he’d notice if something happened… 

“Come on!” her older sister urged on her comms.

Spurred on by fear, Sophie increased the pressure of the fans by use of the touch screen monitor. The guard glanced towards her but saw nothing, while Knox let out a strangled cry.

“Who touched the controls?” he demanded, clawing at his eyes.

“No-one sir,” he bravely spoke up. “I saw them turn on by themselves.”

“Ridiculous,” spat Knox with the gravitas of a man whose ego is knowledge. “Now, where’s my eye drops - “

With a leap of fright in her stomach Sophie realised she had mixed up her priorities. She had to get to Knox’s private suite before she lost her chance.

Tailing him, she followed him out of the office but veered another way down a corridor, and saw a separate office with the door open. She exited outside, passing by a pair of patrolling security personnel, and hurried across the sand laid amidst the flooring to where she came to where Knox’s suite was but from the outside, and saw his figure flash in the panes of the windows, approaching swiftly.

With the bathroom window open, Sophie climbed inside and dug out the poison from her pocket. She opened Knox’s eye drops and poured the poison in, but as she tightened the lid it dropped from her grasp and spilled on the floor just as Knox opened the door.

“Oh, fuck me!” Knox swore, moving swiftly towards the window to close it as Sophie leapt out of the way. “Can none of you keep this place in shape?”

“We’re trying, sir,” as only a sycophant can say, from his attired security guard. “There’s some more in the supply cupboard.”

“Good. Fetch them for me,” Knox ordered, turning on the taps at the sink to rinse his eyes out, while the security guard closed the door to head into the supply closet.

Tense with worry, Sophie had no combat skills as she held her breath and saw only Knox’s reflection in the mirror opposite. How could she bring him down?

“Sophie?” Cassandra snarled in her comms. “Answer me!”

All she could do was watch as the security guard re-entered and handed Knox another vial of eye drops, which he administered himself in the mirror and shortly after headed out.

“Cassandra,” Sophie whispered in a scared tone. “I couldn’t do it - “

“You’re useless,” Cassandra slammed off her comms.

Cassandra/Human Torch

Cassandra sat in the van in the underground carpark, fuming with rage. Her little sister whose invisibility should have been able to pull this off was little better than a rat.

Sliding the door open, Cassandra looked as stern and brave as Sierra, Robert Knox’s daughter who was in a close race with Moses Lee in this race car championship.

She emerged from the carpark to reach beside the Kronstadt building, and turned right to where a gated entrance remained padlocked against intrusion.

With a click of her fingers, the lock fizzled into nothing and she pushed the gates open, approaching a set of stairs which formed the metal column barricade over which staff might safely travel over the racecourse.

Cassandra ascended the stairs until she came to the top, the whirring of motors foremost in her ear and came upon a orange-vested, high-vis wearing staff member using binoculars to chart the course of the racers.

He was so focused that he did not see her as she merely leaned on the balcony, where the race cars were soon approaching.

Tying for first were two cars; one red, one yellow. Only the red could be from Kronstadt...

Locking onto the yellow car, Cassandra’s eyes sparked and the wheels combusted, sending Moses Lee into a spin. His car flipped over several times and crashed into a barrier, while Sierra raced ahead to claim the prize.

“You owe me,” Cassandra whispered to herself, paging her comms. “Sophie, I’m going for Sierra.”

SOPHIE/INVISIBLE WOMAN

In desperation to help Cassandra’s cause, Sophie followed Knox out into the corridor and watched him descend the set of stairs onto the first floor. He stopped to take a call and nodded, moving on across to the other side of the floor, where he began descending a set of stairs.

As he kept going downstairs, he reached the ground floor and went through a door into Kronstadt’s auto repair garage.

“Cassandra,” Sophie phoned in. “I think he’s headed for the awards ceremony - “

Cassandra/Human Torch

Cassandra found her way to the stands where people cheered for what had been a close race. In amidst the cluster of crowds, she made her way to the staircase which allowed people to access them in the first place, and found a door in the centre which led to where the announcers heralding Sierra’s victory.

She clicked her fingers once more so that the lock fizzled to a stop, and closed the doors behind her as she moved up another set of stairs, through another door and into where the paned glass enclosure of the tech-heavy radio room was set.

“Hey,” frowned one, as the other turned, muting his headset as was custom. “You’re not supposed to be here - “

With combat kicks and punches, Cassandra rendered both of them inert fairly easily. She grabbed their binoculars and saw that the stage was opposite the stands, divided by the race track with the steel barrier overarching. Underneath the stage, she could see the levers and pulleys for the pyrotechnics that would accompany Sierra’s moment of fame.

SOPHIE/Invisible Woman

Rendered invisible, Sophie faithfully followed her mark out of the auto repair garage, and across a small patch of grass to where Robert entered the awards marquee, arms folded with his security guard to talk to Sierra, who frowned when she noticed her father.

“Sophie, are you still with Knox?” Cassandra barked in her ear.

Sophie managed to stifle a squeal, and went outside to answer, furtively glancing around.

“Yeah,” she managed. “He’s with Sierra.”

“He’s in the marquee with her?” Sophie could hear Cassandra thinking. “Is he drinking anything?”

Sophie glanced around, then went back, glad for she did not want to mention she had already wasted the poison. “No.”

“Fuck,” Cassandra said. “Think of a way to take out Robert.”

Sophie stilled, as when she returned into the marquee, Robert was already heading back the way he came. She followed him and his escort, wondering how she might take him down, when he entered the room with the stairs leading up to the floors of his building, with his security guard behind him, and she noticed a lampshade above them all, and suddenly her senses began to tingle and she raised her arms, prying the lampshade loose with telekinetic fervour which drained her, and as she fell, so did the lampshade onto Robert who let out an almighty yell, pierced by the barbs while the security guard only managed to avoid getting hit by the hair of his skin.

“What the hell?” shouted the security guard, paging his comms. “We’ve got an accident - “

He paused suddenly, as did Sophie with wide eyes. The two locked gazes and with fright, Sophie realised she was no longer invisible.

“What - who are - don’t move!” the guard was stymied, for this girl was obviously injured, but he had not seen her following him, and she did not look like an employee.

“Don’t hurt me!” Sophie cried, as the guard pulled her to her feet, both suspicious and worrying for he did not know what to make of this.

Cassandra/Human Torch

Cassandra stood in the control room, watching as Sierra claimed her trophy from the race coordinator. She lifted it so all could see, and opposite Cassandra folded her arms and focused on the pyrotechnics, as flames spurred on by the pipes leapt in arcing shoots around her, safely from harm.

Cassandra focused all her will, and suddenly the flames leapt to her assent, engulfing Sierra into a human torch. Flailing and dropping the torch and rolling on the ground, Cassandra picked up the comms from Sophie, a burst of static followed by an unfamiliar voice.

SOPHIE/Invisible Woman

“Now, tell us what happened,” Sophie was in the security room in the parking lot, sitting on a chair while several officers questioned her.

“I don’t know,” Sophie wept, meaning her sudden powers, but still crying nonetheless.

“You’re not a Kronstadt employee,” frowned the security guard, taken by her obvious distress. “How’d you end up almost dying underneath a chandelier?”

“Can I have a tissue?” Sophie sniffed, accepting one with a smile and wiping her eyes. She had tried to become invisible, but her powers wouldn’t work, and she couldn’t outfight them if they managed to grab onto her clothes.

“Sophie - “ Cassandra came blaring into her ear. “Where are you?”

Sophie meekly looked around, as did the officers in their blue shirts and ties, black pants and hats, and remembered she had been frog marched here from the car park.

“Can I at least get my things from the van?” Sophie improvised.

“Miss, we need to get your statement first,” replied the officer.

“But you can walk out the door and you’re right there,” Sophie pleaded.

Cassandra/Human Torch

Cassandra made a swift turn and entered the car park, where she could see the red of her van, still in position. In the center of the car park was the security room, which as she walked casually past, she glanced in and saw fewer officers looking back at her which confirmed her suspicions.

“Gotcha,” Cassandra whispered to herself, as the officer frowned, while the other scoped her out.

She walked around the side to where a power generator was, and pried it open and sparked the fuse with her fingers. The lights in the security room all went out.

SOPHIE/Invisible Woman

“What the - “ the officer glanced up, for although the lights were out, the faint blue of the monitors were still operational. He trudged towards the door, and Sophie managed to find her confidence and make herself invisible, tripping into a counter as she did so.

“Ow,” Sophie managed, but the officer heard her but saw she was no longer there.

In the torch light he shone, he saw the door open of its own accord, and motioned his partner to follow out into the car park, and saw nobody.

“Where’d she go?” the officer demanded as did his buddy, drawing pistols to see a red head woman, almost like the one they were taking the statement of, emerge from the side where they knew there was a generator. The car park was otherwise empty.

“You!” shouted the officer. “Freeze!”

“No!” Sophie squealed, extending her palms once more, as a force field seemed to shoot out and buckle the officers over, as Cassandra rushed for the van, the engine crackling in a second.

Sophie watched as the officers recovered and as the van reversed, peeling towards her at a fast speed, and before the officers could grab their weapons, the van hurtled into them and stopped in front of Sophie, who pulled open the van side door and jumped in, securing it behind her.

“You hit them!” Sophie pealed, as Cassandra turned the van around, and the remainder officers who had witnessed what had been carnage drew their pistols - 

Cassandra winked at them when she would have otherwise been peppered with bullets from afar, and their pistols backfired and they lay senseless, bumps on the tread as the van drove over their corpses, and raced for the exit before the rest could catch up with them.


	5. Mumbai

Adam/MYSTIQUE

“I’m here,” Adam paged his comms, getting out of the taxi and paying the fare, adrift immediately in the smoke and hubbub of Mumbai, a place cluttered and crowded he would find difficult to live in.

To one end stood a building still under construction, but also a film set where Rangan, one of the targets, was shooting his latest movie. To another end were the chawls, the slums, and a train yard where Vanya Shah was secluded in semi luxury like a jungle.

Clara/SHADOWCAT

“I’m at the chawls,” Clara reported.

The two storey rise of slum apartments gave her claustrophobia, but still she had to wear the traditional garb so she would not stand out. Glittering in a sari but with only her eyes showing, in the center area she overheard two residents talking - 

“I can’t believe the noise,” spoke a woman. “Till 2am at night! I tell you!”

Intrigued, Clara ascended the stairs, phasing in and out of rooms with discretion, finding nothing of value. The last one to remain was one in which she had to wait until a chatting couple moved on, then she entered what was considered a roomy dwelling only to find a cork board on which was strung two pictures, of the same targets her team was tracking - Rangan and Vanya Shah, in different locations.

“There’s someone else here who wants these guys dead,” Clara radioed in.

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

From atop the crane, Max stood perched as he could see all from a dizzying height.

“Listen up, guys,” Zoe reported in. “Clara found an apartment where someone wants these guys dead.”

“Where’s the assassin?” Max asked.

“Dunno,” Clara reported in.

“Max, you hold position,” Zoe ordered. “Clara, see if you can find more.”

“Nah, I’ll find a good entry point for cocka,” Max ended his comms.

Max teleported on top of a series of other buildings, so he might better get a view. From atop here only gulls crying above the sea bothered him, but most prominently a room with a sliding window was there, and from his binoculars he could see a painter despairing while talking to a bodyguard.

“Adam, get up to the nth floor,” Max radioed in. “There’s a painter setting up his tools. Maybe he’s painting Rangan.”

Adam/MYSTIQUE

Adam disguised himself as a security guard under cover, and entered past the flanking officers at the apartment’s gates and up the stairs, through the labyrinthine staircases and corridors, guided by Max who could see when he was closer to the nth side, and came upon a pair of doors guarded by a security official.

“The painter’s setting up his work,” the guard held out his hands. “Sorry, buddy.”

Fuming, Adam went a different way, near the disused elevator shaft where another door was, but here it needed a key card, too. Open nearby was the gaping shaft of a window.

“You can do it, cocka,” Max urged.

“Yeah, cocka,” Clara agreed.

With a deep breath, Adam pushed himself out onto the landing, holding on tight. His blue scaly skin replicated the colours of the building, though anyone looking hard enough would know.

“Can you make yourself invisible?” Max asked, as he watched through his binoculars as Adam slid along the balcony, almost to where the glass shade was pulled, through which he could hear the painter tutting over his materials, and the security guard watching TV.

“No, he can’t refract light,” Clara interrupted.

Adam made his way just to the edge, while the painter’s back was turned to his palette that he was setting up, and the guard facing a different way as he flicked channels.

“Go,” Max told Adam, and he did as he was told.

Adam leapt in, his blue scaly skin appearing all at once, and with a quick judo chop to the painter’s neck who fell to the rug, Adam leapt onto the couch and delivered a swift kick to the guard rising from the couch so that he fell flat on the coffee table.

Adam hid the security guard and the painter in the nearby closet, their bodies almost bulging to fit, and reaffirmed his appearance as the painter. He had only just collected his palette when the electronic sound of a key card swiping made its appearance and in stepped Rangan, escorted by two guards.

“Well, well,” Rangan smiled. “Time for my painting, no?”

“Please stand over there, Mr Rangan,” Adam affected a sycophantic, florid Indian accent. He started some brush strokes as the guards left the room, so that he was alone with the target.

“This light is perfect for me,” Rangan flexed his muscles, still deciding on what pose to take - 

A thud out of nowhere and Adam glanced over his canvas, frowning and then in shock to see the red weal that had sprouted from Rangan’s forehead, as he drooped and blood splattered the backdrop and he fell lifeless to the ground.

“There’s a sniper!” Adam whispered hurriedly, dropping to the ground and cowering on instinct, as the doors burst open to see Rangan dead, the painter obviously devoid of weapons, and securing the room with a hue and cry.

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

“Fuck!” Max teleported on top of Rangan’s building, alone but for bricks and mortar and used his binoculars, trying to scan where in the hell that came from, but there was no telling. “Clara, the assassin got Rangan!”

“Did you see him?” Clara demanded.

“No,” Max replied. “But he must’ve seen Adam!”

Clara/SHADOWCAT

Clara heard footsteps coming quick towards her in the apartment which belonged to the assassin, and hid behind the kitchen counter just as the door unlocked. She heard the footsteps come close, tear off a piece of paper and heard the setup of a rifle on a stand, and peeked over to see him aiming out the window at something she couldn’t see.

She phased through the floor and into the apartment below, upsetting a couple who were making lunch and knocking both out with swift hits to their sternums.

“Max, check the chawls on the nth side,” Clara radioed in. “He’s back in his apartment and aiming somewhere else this time.”

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

Max zoomed in on his binoculars but could not see the rifle or scope peeking out, but teleported atop the chawls, and saw on the rooftop an empty stand and a briefcase tucked nearby. He peeked over, and saw any number of places.

“If he’s after Vanya Shah, the train station’s on the other side,” Max radioed in. “He’s pointed at the laundry where all those guys hand wash all the clothes.”

“Vanya owns that place,” Zoe said, after a brief amount of tapping. “But she’s holding court in her train station. What makes the assassin think she’ll leave?”

Max teleported atop the train station, near some shipping crates where he could see from a high point Vanya talking on her cell.

“She’s leaving,” Max reported. “The owner of the laundromat decided to show up.”

Clara/SHADOWCAT

Clara approached the bridge which helped to span across a section of Mumbai, suddenly cordoned off by guards, and a particularly decorative one with a turban who escorted the laundry owner atop.

“Miss Shah will be along shortly,” spoke the guard. “She’ll want to know about these declining profits.”

“Yessir,” wiped the sweat from his brow came the laundry owner, peering precipitously over the edge as his hard workers.

Adam/MYSTIQUE

“Come with us,” Adam had been ordered, frog marched up to the floor below the top, too many guards to knock out and still in the painter’s disguise as he was led to where a plank of flooring separated some of the construction skeleton.

His heart stilled to walk out on it like a man about to walk the plank, yet he could not see how he could escape without getting shot at, nor contact his friends.

“You know anything about Mr Rangan’s death?” aimed the pistols of several security officers.

“No,” Adam continued to speak in his Indian accent.

“Adam, Vanya Shah’s on her way to the laundromat,” Clara reported. “Where are you?”

Adam held his hands to his head, activating his comms as he gaped at the distance below.

Clara/SHADOWCAT

“There’s no need to keep me here,” the Indian accent of the painter came into her comms. Clara’s hair stood on end to receive the distress call. “I might fall perched so far out of this building!”

“Max,” Clara paged him. “Cocka’s in trouble. I think he’s still in the Rangan Tower - “

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

“Got him,” Max locked onto with his binoculars the figure of the painter, standing precariously on a ledge with his hands raised, surely at gunpoint.

Adam/MYSTIQUE

“If you’re innocent you have nothing to hide,” snarled the man, suddenly receiving a burst of static.

“Sir,” came the voice. “We searched the room. Two bodies in the closet, one of them the painter. This guy’s a fake - “

“You - “ the security guard raised his pistol, as did the others.

“Help!” Adam paged on all his comms, leaping from the plank and his nostrils in his scent fear picking up the burnt smoke, the hands taking him and suddenly life was whirling as he landed on the rooftop of the chawls, Max breathing just as heavily beside him.

“Thanks,” Adam managed, white in the face and about to pass out.

Clara/SHADOWCAT

“While you two were fucking around, Vanya’s here,” Clara paged, noticing the elegantly dressed woman with a nose ring on a chain rebuking the laundromat owner with her high, shrill tones.

Vanya looked out over the workers, haranguing them with abuse until a shot fired from somewhere because she stumbled, blood splattering and fell face first into the clothes being washed despite a hapless worker’s effort.

“She’s dead,” Clara reported, slipping down the stairs as carnage broke out. “That’s both targets down.”

“Tail the assassin,” Zoe told her. “I want to find out who he works for.”

Clara found her way back to the chawls, and spotted the man she had seen when in his kitchen in his grey suit, following him through the crowds until he came to a payphone and began dialing.

“New clothes, new fabrics?” asked a vendor, offering his wares.

“No thanks,” Clara shrugged him off, but his eyes lingered.

“I am ready to meet,” the assassin spoke in a deep voice. “I will meet you there.”

Clara tailed him down through throngs of crowds, across a little bridge and down an alleyway. He looked furtively both ways so Clara phased into the building just long enough to emerge and see him missing, but continued down a side alley and peered around the corner, as he was being frisked by two men, the skulls of crows dangling above them.

“It’s a secret hideout, looks weird,” Clara paged in. “It’ll be tough to get in unnoticed.”

“If we had time we could disguise Adam,” Zoe thought out loud. “You’ll have to phase in and find an entry point.”

“Alright,” Clara replied miffed, as she phased into the underground and came into a sewer pipe, which as she advanced she saw the skulls of crows still near, and heard voices as two gang members with assault rifles chatted.

She phased into the wall, clapped both hands around their mouths and drew them deep into the walls. She was the only one to emerge - both were solidified and well gone.

Creeping through the encampment, she crouched behind a crate to hear footsteps, and glanced over to see a gang member escorting the grey-suited assassin.

“Please, it is just a formality,” spoke the gang member, as Clara tailed them, but stayed behind a corner where there was a wall.

She heard the assassin being frisked, then a door open.

“Welcome,” came another, more ominous voice, before the door closed and footsteps headed back towards her.

Clara headed back, not from where she came, but around another alcove, and hid behind some crates to hear two more sets of footsteps patrolling this corridor, which was on the other side of where the assassin was to meet up with this mysterious contact.

Clara did the same to these two and lodged them both securely in the ground, then crouched at the watertight door, but she could hear nothing of their conversation.

The door on the other side opened, and she hurried to the corner where once she heard the assassin being frisked for a second time, and heard footsteps go in opposing directions.

She crouched and watched the assassin walk back the way he had come; which meant his contact went in the other direction. She headed down  _ that  _ corridor, coming to the end catching the sight of someone putting on new clothes as he went up some stairs.

She tailed him to the edge of the staircase, hearing him open a door once he reached the top, and close it behind him. She followed him, listening at the keyhole to two voices bidding the mystery man goodbye and turning up the volume of their TV as he left.

She phased through the door, coming into a usual cabana home, where the two gang members were watching the TV in the opposite direction from her, and she phased through the entry door, suddenly sunlight beaming down on her, and the man was barely discernible as he walked to the pier, where debris drifted in the sullen wake, and he turned to head back into the suffusing crowds, and a scar was livid across his stubble face.

He stared at her blankly, neither objectification nor lust, and she knew something was wrong.

“Should you be out unescorted?” suggested the man, his voice deepening. “The marketplace will get dirt on your fine fabrics.”

“I’m OK,” Clara replied, then his eyes narrowed, and he nodded, turning instead not towards the crowds but into the cabana house.

“Max, I’m by the harbor,” Clara paged him, hiding at once behind a number of barrels, as the two gang members emerged, their hands at the ready on their pistols, looking for her. “The third target’s downstairs, near the house where two gang members just came out of.”

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

Teleporting atop the crane, it did not take Max long to find the harbor, and use his binoculars to see two gang thugs suspiciously roaming the nearby area.

He teleported atop the roof of the cabana house and jumped down, letting himself in and spotting the door left ajar leading downstairs. He took his time until he came to a corner, where guns were being loaded, and amidst a group of thugs, out came a prominent man who started issuing orders.

“I’ll deal with him,” Max paged, teleporting in a puff of smoke, tackling the man to the general surprise of all nearby, and teleporting atop the crane.

Strained with fear, the scarred man was held at arm’s length by Max.

“You’re our third target,” Max grinned. “We helped your assassin kill Rangan and Vanya Shah.”

“What are you?” the man looked like to cross himself, at this impressive superhuman feat.

“Your reaper,” Max tried to throw him off, but the man struggled, and they both fell, but only one hit the ground with a resounding smack.


	6. Bangkok

Adam/MYSTIQUE

“Thanks for letting me do this op,” Adam radioed, arriving at the Himmapan hotel by yacht, upon the splendour of views, the polite sycophancy of the locals in their red dress and white aprons, and ubiquitous officers in their white suit and hats, pistols by their sides  _ just in case _ something got out of hand.

“No problem,” Zoe radioed. “Your targets are Jordan Cross, a rock star who’s rented out the entire west wing and his lawyer, Ken Morgan who’s waiting for his queen suite in the east wing to be finished cleaning.

Adam walked up the steps and into the hotel, a particular lush vines draping the ceiling, much like an indoor greenhouse, as by the reception desk he was handed his keycard.

“Welcome to the Himmapan, Miss… “

“Oh my god, cocka,” Clara radioed in. “You’re not a girl, again?”

“Well, I had to hide my identity,” Adam blushed, nodding to the employee who smiled blandly at his murmurings and led him upstairs to a fairly regular suite, doors opened to reveal a lush living room with a gold plated bowl of fruit, a wide screen TV and carved armchairs and paintings on the walls.

“Thank you,” Adam handed him a crisp tip, and the porter shook his head emphatically and exited, closing the doors so that his guest might unwind alone.

Blue scales erupted all over Adam, so that he resembled his usual form. He checked the bathroom which had a claw foot tub and ornate paneling, and the bedroom, sheets pulled tightly and mint chocolates on the pillows and a desk atop which was a letter opener, which he took at will.

“I’ll get the lawyer first,” Adam decided, his skin becoming like the uniform of a Himmapan hotel porter.

Out of his suite he went, downstairs and headed past the bar, where he noticed a slightly boozy woman chatting up a stranger. Further still he descended into the restaurant, and out onto the patio facing the pier from which he had disembarked, and bumped into Ken Morgan, balding and peering at him with spectacles while his armed escort in a black suit sized Adam up.

“Ah,” spoke Ken Morgan. “My room is ready?”

“Please to come this way,” Adam spoke in accented Thai, leading him back the way he came, passing through the restaurant as he did.

Cassandra/Human Torch

“The lawyer’s on the move,” Cassandra discreetly radioed, a vixen in leopard print, not at all discreet with her flaming hair and freckles. “His suite’s ready. Are you in position?”

SOPHIE/Invisible Woman

“Yep,” Sophie told her older sister, still smarting from the insults she had received from the fiasco in Miami. Light refracting so that she had become invisible, Sophie had snuck onto the property without a reservation and climbed up one of the pipes which led long and snaking up to the east wing’s top floor, the queen suite where a window had been opened to air it out from the previous occupant’s antics.

Once inside, she had to be careful to avoid the dozen maids who littered the place cleaning beer bottles, mopping up spills and wiping varnished tables. The ground floor of the queen suite was magnificent, sets of suites with an office and a bathroom and a magnificent fountain in the foyer.

Once upstairs, there were two bedrooms on either side with their own en suites. In the center was a glass walled Zen area with grass and a playing fountain.

“Wow, this place is awesome!” Sophie had radioed, before hearing word that Ken Morgan was on his way.

She snuck downstairs once more, and where a glass of champagne sat newly poured on the dining table, the maids doing their finishing touches to the place, Sophie extracted a pill case from her pocket and dropped one in the glass, fizzing and evaporating.

Although invisible, it was still custom to crouch and hide behind a couch as she heard the front doors open.

Adam/MYSTIQUE

“Ah, this is more like it,” Ken Morgan announced, as his escort followed swiftly by, and the maids went on their way so that only he and his security guard were with Adam in the room. “Much… better.”

“Pleased to make your stay as perfect as possible,” Adam bowed, as the security guy frowned at such elaborate language.

“I think we’re done here,” Ken Morgan dismissed Adam, going to the sideboard.

“You heard him,” the security guard waved two fingers at him.

Adam nodded, turning to leave and extracting from the folds of his uniform the letter opener, which he turned and flung just as the security guard drew his weapon, and fell as the letter opener impaled his neck, and blood splattered the varnished floor so recently mopped.

“Wha - no!” Ken Morgan dropped his undrunk glass of champagne where it shattered upon the floor, cowering as Adam ran towards him, leaping over the couch and dealing a kick that knocked Ken Morgan unconscious.

“That was easy,” Adam spoke, his form becoming blue once more, as he knelt to the lawyer and swiftly broke his neck.

He heard a movement from somewhere but could not place it; and transformed once more into the porter, heading out into the corridor where two guards stood unalerted to the commotion, and down the stairs.

Cassandra/Human Torch

“Cassandra,” Sophie swallowed in fear.

“Is he dead?” Cassandra asked, who was in the restaurant bathroom fixing her hair.

“There’s another one here,” Sophie moaned. “He had powers. He transformed into some blue monster and killed him, and then transformed back into a worker again.”

“A polymorph,” Cassandra considered. Flames lit up her nails but she quelled them lest her rage take flight. “If he’s after the lawyer, he’s after Jordan Cross as well. Tail him. He’ll take us there, but when he makes the kill, I want him dead.”

“I can’t kill!” Sophie was scared, for though she had powers to blast people off their feet, the man had dextrous combat karate.

“You can pick up a pistol and point it,” Cassandra told her. “All you have to do is make sure you don’t get seen.”

Adam/MYSTIQUE

As Adam went downstairs, he slipped into the servant’s quarters and continued down a flight of stairs, into the basement where a few officers patrolled and some housekeeping staff toiled. Once in a hidden alcove, he pulled a cellphone from his pocket, and dialled the Himmapan reception, his voice mimicking that of Ken Morgan.

“How may I help you today?” came the friendly reply.

“Yah, I want to speak to my client, Mr Cross,” Adam’s voice was perfect on tone and pitch.

“Right away, sir,” Adam heard the dial tone, then the click of the phone.

“What?” Jordan Cross was barely distinguishable over the loud, raucous partying and drums and music.

“It’s Hannah,” Adam’s voice took on a sultry, betrayed voice. “And if you don’t want me to go public about the truth, meet me in the basement right now.”

“Hannah,” Jordan breathed, suspicious as she had died in an accident at his apartment, yet her voice was unmistakable, and with his money he wanted to nip this fear in the bud. “I’ll be down soon.”

SOPHIE/Invisible Woman

Sophie had quickly caught up to the disguised porter, following him into the servant quarters and into the basement, intrigued to watch the porter who could mimic voices, too. She had to stifle a gasp to watch the porter’s skin ripple, shedding like snake skin but with no husk to become a woman who looked off the TV having died in a fall.

“Cassandra,” Sophie hissed, moving out of the way while the dead girl stood in the corridor, waiting for Jordan to cross to arrive. “He’s in the basement, he got the rock star to come down - “

Cassandra/Human Torch

“I’ll meet him down there, then,” Cassandra curled hair over her ear, her earring stirring in the light of the chandelier above, as she exited out into the grounds, near where Sophie had climbed the pipe on the west side to enter Ken Morgan’s suite on the top floor.

Officers strolled as did guests, paying her either no mind or a lot of it, but Cassandra soon found a descending set of stairs walled by concrete at their bottom, and a door secured with a keycard lock. She retrieved an electronic card from her pocket and swiped it, so that it fizzed as inactive and she pushed the door open, coming into the basement where she rounded a corner and saw two white helmeted officers, and just beyond, a girl who tapped her foot impatiently, and stared at her hands.

SOPHIE/Invisible Woman

“I’m behind you,” Sophie whispered, holding Cassandra’s hand so that both of them were now invisible.

Holding hands like some awkward sister moment, Sophie was  _ led _ by Cassandra through the hallway, coming to a stop as the doors opened to reveal Jordan Cross, flanked by four bodyguards.

Adam/MYSTIQUE

“Seal the area,” Jordan ordered, a party boy who couldn’t believe his eyes to see Hannah alive again, standing before him with cuts and bruises to suggest she survived the fall.

Two of his bodyguards went and dismissed the other officers so that they were alone in this section of the basement. The remaining two sized up Hannah.

“Sir, we should frisk her,” advised one of his guards.

“No, it’s alright,” Jordan ranged his eyes over Adam. “I went to your funeral. I mean, I saw it on TV - “

“Of course you did,” Adam affected a betrayed tone.

“You fell twenty-eight stories,” Jordan continued, his bewilderment faltering to hard suspicion. “Yet she never had a twin. And no plastic surgeon’s this good.”

“I want you, Jordan,” Adam draped her arms around the rock star, as convulsed by curiosity as he was could not help but push her off.

“You’re crazy!” his erection would not go away, regardless.

“Let your guards watch, then,” Adam suggested slinkily.

“Nah,” Jordan looked furtively about. “You’re not Hannah, that’s for sure. Guys, take a step back.”

Miffed, the guards took position nearby, resting their hands on their pistols. All facing otherwise, Jordan breathed in the scent of Adam’s skin.

“God, I missed you,” Jordan admitted. “I should never have - “

Adam slit Jordan’s throat with the letter opener slid from his pocket, flung it into the neck of the security guard who flailed, as Jordan wailed in his death throes and the two security guards who had been sent to guard the outer edges of the corridor were alerted.

Adam lashed out with a kick at the second security guard posted to Jordan’s side, who wasn’t quick enough to evade, and a follow up punch sealed the deal so that he fell and cracked his head on the concrete a step below, blood oozing out like a slow caterpillar.

“Freeze!” shouted the two security guards, pistols drawn as they converged where the scuffle had happened, but Adam took to the double doors ahead, bashing through them before they could reach him.

Cassandra/Human Torch

“It’s time,” Cassandra cruelly ripped her hand from Sophie’s grasp, light revealing her like a hooker in a grimy downtown as she placed her palms to either side of her from where a security officer was approaching.

Flames burst like fireballs and ignited the poor souls, shrieking in their death throes as her eyes burned like fire, Sophie crouching at Cassandra’s side in fear, as the dead girl turned in horror to see the pyrefiend on high.

“Die!” Cassandra called, her palms placed in front of her this time, and flames licked the walls as the fire alarm bellowed and sprinkles dotted the roof tiles, and the dead girl leapt into an alcove as red and crimson became dragons licking the pavement - 

SOPHIE/Invisible Woman

Sophie rose beside Cassandra, who marched on up the steps and down the corridor which was largely scorched earth, raising her palms to the alcove in which the dead girl had hidden, and white smoke billowed to make her older sister stumble, and lashing out with a fire extinguisher the dead girl knocked Cassandra in the head, where she fell unconscious upon the floor.

“No!” Sophie put her palms forward, blasting the dead girl off her feet. Dizzy, she remained conscious but did not have the strength to protest when authorities moved to rescue them from what they could not conclude was a superhuman feat of fire, and along the way, she lost track of her sister and the polymorph.


	7. Hawke's Bay

Adam/MYSTIQUE

The little dinghy yacht arrived on shore, in Hawkes Bay where a stretch of beach lay before him, with rustling bushes as he walked up the sand, his body encased in a tapering swimsuit to help breathe and conform to the chilly temperature.

Ahead was the mansion, with the snowy peaks of the mountains and telephone poles as a backdrop. Heavy sand crunched under his feet as he made his way up to the front door, which was understandably locked and for which no obvious hiding place of its key was nearby.

Sidling round to the pool house which had its glass panes open with curtains fluttering in the breeze, he slid aside a mat which revealed a house key, which he used on the pool house door and gained entry to the house, his form changing to that of Alma Reynard, the target whom he was to assassinate, but due home any minute now.

“Welcome Alma,” spoke the intelligent AI.

Adam perused the garage which contained dead bodies in the open van and the basement full of canned goods, the living room with a projector screen for the TV and a fully stocked kitchen. A piano was in one corner while all the windows were equipped with steel shades capable of shielding bullets from the outside.

Upstairs, Adam found Alma’s well furnished bedroom and walk-in closet and ensuite, and further an open plan office with a painting nearby which he adjusted and clicked open a hidden door for the panic room inside.

Weaponry decorated a panel on the wall, while a computer dongle on the desk became Adam’s fixation of attention. He snatched it and went back into the office and plugged it in, confirming what he already knew, about his reason for making this woman his target.

Lights glared and he saw multiple vehicles approaching, packed with guards toting assault rifles and SMGs.

“Be careful,” Zoe warned.

“I’m going radio silent,” Adam told her, switching off his comms.

He crouched down behind the upstairs banister, where he heard the front door unlock and peered over to see Alma walk in with her boyfriend, Orson, and a detective, a man in a tan trench coat and hat, their personal guard.

“Welcome, Guest,” spoke the AI.

“Huh, that’s weird,” Alma frowned.

“You notice it too, right?” Orson pleaded. “This damn machine’s crazy.”

“No, that it didn’t say my name,” Alma replied, not overly irked. She shrugged and flipped open her cell phone to dial a number. “Mr Hamilton… “

As Alma proceeded to speak to the person she was blackmailing and Orson fixed them some drinks, Adam noticed two guards enter the upstairs landing from the balcony outside, at the other end.

“Search the place,” called the detective, issuing orders.

“Yes, sir,” they replied, Kevlar-oriented and in no mood to fuck around, though their joints ached for a sweet release.

Adam snuck back into the open-plan office and closed the panic room door, hearing their footsteps come hither and subside. After an appropriate amount of time, Adam emerged from the panic room, hearing the two guards exit out the other door onto the outside balcony, and he resumed his position so he could overhear Alma’s conversation.

“I’m going upstairs,” Alma called. “You coming up?”

“Yeah, just a sec,” Orson called, fixated with the news report.

Adam crouched and watched Alma ascend the stairs, her detective following faithfully after her. Alma rounded the corner while the detective stood outside her quarters, arms folded.

Adam slipped outside onto the balcony which wrought around Alma’s quarters, a window loose to pry open and slip inside, his foot slipping on a kiwi which made a squeaking sound as he paused in fear, as Alma brought the automatic toothbrush to her mouth, dressed in silk pyjamas.

“What was that,” she turned, as Adam leapt and kneed her in the stomach so that she retched, toothbrush clattering to the ground and broke her neck cleanly, stuffing her in the closet nearby.

“Perfect,” Adam’s voice matched Alma’s, as his body took that form too. He picked up the electric toothbrush and set in on the countertop, just as he heard footsteps.

“Alma,” he called. “I’m gonna hit the shower.”

Adam turned to see Orson in his jock strap, entering the glass paned shower where steam quickly fogged up the interior. Adam took off the silk pyjamas, entering the shower so that water splattered on the short brown haircut, and Orson turned, still in his jockstrap as he began lathering his hair with shampoo.

“Alma,” his eyes were wide, as his bulge hardened.

“Orson,” Adam replied, pressing his breasts against him, such that his breath gathered fervour and he placed his hands upon them.

“Cocka,” sparked radio static, and Adam winced to hear Max’s voice. “Zoe overrode your radio silence. We can all hear what you’re doing.”


	8. Marrakesh

**MARRAKESH**

Clara/SHADOWCAT

Clara stalked the Marrakesh alley ways, dressed in a sari with her face covered, as she came upon the printing crew who amid the dust and cobblestoned pathways complained of needing more water.

“Let’s head back to get some more flyers,” one petitioned, as the others agreed.

Clara picked up the handset of a pay phone nearby, watching as one portioned off to enter a disused supply closet and take a piss. She snuck in after him, closing the door and snapped his neck easily enough, taking his uniform before dumping him in a nearby dumpster.

Wrapped in rags and propaganda, she scarcely looked like anyone she knew, let alone a girl which would out her in a second. Emerging, she followed the group of which she had not lost too much track as they walked through the market center, throngs of citizens and stalls, incense and meat on the grill billowing up her nostrils.

Grace/ROGUE

“Hi,” Grace introduced herself, to the news reporter and her producer, who waited under the alcove where crowds screamed for Sandberg to come out and await justice. “I’m the photographer.”

“You?” frowned the reporter, sizing Grace up. “You’re… not what I expected.”

Especially in the heat, Grace sweltered, but had taken the mantle well, considering the photographer was freelance and currently suffering from irritable bowel syndrome.

“I’ve got my camera,” Grace lifted the Nikon which hung around her neck.

“Fine, let’s get this show on the road,” spoke the producer, as the three of them made their way through the protestors, and to where two guards with assault rifles at the ready barred their way into the consulate.

“Margot Pierce, here to interview Klaus Sandberg,” spoke the producer.

As the soldier radioed in to check with his boss, Grace felt the vitriol from the crowd and thought hampered that nobody would want to be caught in this crowd; they’d be torn apart like a lamb with wolves.

“Go on in,” issued the soldier.

JOSHUA/Professor X

Joshua scanned the latest file of paperwork, walking from the printer back to the conference room long since cleared, and added it to the stack of documents nearby. Overhead was the projector screen, and littered about the table were half-drunk cups of coffee and untouched plastic cups of water, which the cleaning crew was helpful enough to assist with.

Out into the corridor he went, to the balcony in his suit and shined shoes as a consulate employee, his hands on the guard rail as he glanced down to where the matronly receptionist was leading the news crew to the room which had been set aside for an interview. Along with the crack shot reporter and the producer was a girl who nervously fiddled and bit her fingernails as she followed her entourage into the room.

Clara/SHADOWCAT

Following the printing crew towards the school which Reza Zaydan had made use of and occupied with armed force, Clara was granted access into the courtyard where soldiers were doing push ups amid a red beret general who supervised their progress.

Once inside the school, Clara noticed the wraparound corridor on both ground and first floors, and into a large room she followed the group to a printing press rapidly firing out propaganda posters which were being diverted into sacks for collection.

Grace/ROGUE

“Mr Sandberg,” began the reporter, sitting opposite Klaus, her target, in front of the green screen with lights to enhance their makeup or tans.

“Hey, why don’t you go upstairs and add a couple more lights?” asked the producer. “Someone round here will show you the way.”

Meekly Grace nodded, and exited the room to ascend a nearby spiral staircase, where halfway on a platform stood a blue-suited officer.

“Nothing personal, miss,” he extended his arms, and frisked her body, giving her a pat down. Grace tensed, but he understood why, but she knew any bare skin touch could set off suspicions about her powers. “There you go.”

Grace nodded and went further upstairs, almost bumping into a consulate employee.

“Excuse me, do you know where the control room for the lighting is?” Grace asked.

“It’s right in there,” spoke the man, genial and affable, as Grace thanked him.

JOSHUA/Professor X

Joshua frowned to watch the young photographer go into the room, unaided.

“It’s confirmed,” Cassandra had spoken to him on the phone, only seconds ago. “The freelancer’s here at the bazaar, trying to get more than two steps before rushing to the toilet. Whoever you’ve got is an imposter.”

Devising a plan, Joshua decided to move up his timetable. He walked down a corridor and pulled the fire alarm, quick to hurry downstairs.

Grace/ROGUE

Grace entered the control room, closing the door behind her and switching on the lights so that the reporter smiled, basking like a flower. She noticed the winch at the far end which was hooked up to a moose which hung just over Klaus’ chair. If she could pull it, then she could deal death to a target without even having to enter combat herself - 

Alarm bells pealed and she crouched instinctively in fear, wondering if she had gotten caught. Glancing through the glass panes to where the reporter and producer panicked, Klaus rose from his chair, pale-faced as officers ran into the room to escort him to safety.

“What do I do?” Grace panicked, watching Klaus leave the room, the officers with their pistols drawn. “I can’t follow him!”

Clara/SHADOWCAT

Clara slipped away from the others, where she was only permitted to travel on the ground floor. Up the stairs she noticed a soldier ascending, and followed him only to notice a crack in the wall of the first floor, climbing in where a number of soldiers snored in sleeping bags on the ground, with another soldier patrolling throughout.

She tiptoed past him, climbing out of the window and onto the landing, sidling across and phasing through the wall into a disused bathroom, and once more into a room where two soldiers watched TV from the opposite side.

From the entrance of this room, Clara could see an officer standing guard outside Reza Zaydan’s office, who patrolled from the upper and lower levels frequently. She walked behind the guards, and just as one turned to echo some comment about ordering pizza, she phased through the wall, took another step and arrived in Reza Zaydan’s office, or what used to be owned by the headmaster, with among other things, a sabre sword, a phone and a glass of wine on a night stand.

She retrieved a jar of poison pills from her pocket, slipping one into the wine glass. As she did, the phone rang and she leapt for the bed, effortlessly phasing through it and solidifying underneath as though she had been hiding there all along.

“General,” called the officer. “You have a phone call.”

Clara heard footsteps and saw a pair of tightly strapped boots walk their way across the the low coffee table and pick up the phone.

“General Zaydan here,” spoke her target. “An evacuation? Then I’ll meet him in the courtyard. Contact me when he arrives.”

Clara waited for the footsteps to die down, then phased through the floor and into an entryway, just as an officer walked in from the outside.

“The guys already left,” he frowned. “Where’s your flyers?”

Clara turned back, but the officer laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Answer me,” he insisted, as Clara tensed up, preparing to fight - 

“Hey, get me a soda, will ya?” shouted a voice from outside.

The soldier glanced over his shoulder only momentarily, but it was enough for Clara to phase through him and the wall opposite, leaving the soldier entirely nonplussed as she made it beyond the courtyard to where a tank jeep was parked rather haphazardly in this section.

Clara watched the soldier who had accosted her emerge, frowning most deeply until he nodded at his comrade’s assertions and returned back inside, and she breathed a sigh of relief at last.

“I’ve poisoned his drink,” Clara radioed in.

“There’s been an evacuation at the embassy,” Zoe told her. “I picked up comms that Sandberg’s being taken to an underground tunnel which connects to just outside the school.”

“Then I’ll have to find out where it is,” Clara took a deep breath, and phased through the ground so that all went dark.

JOSHUA/Professor X

Joshua hurried along the corridor, having just pulled the fire alarm and entered a supply room, opening a closet where he had stashed the corpse of a soldier he had managed to persuade to come here on short notice.

He changed into the soldier’s uniform, including the assault rifle slung over his back and army cap which hid his brow, and emerged to run downstairs onto the ground floor, and further still into the car park, where a number of soldiers had broken off patrol to form an escort for Klaus who appeared from the way Joshua had come, officers nodding to send off their charge into these better armed soldiers.

“We’ll take care of him,” assented one soldier, a formation in progress which Joshua became a part of, taking Klaus through the car park and down a set of stairs which led into a concrete passageway.

Clara/SHADOWCAT

Clara emerged, gasping for breath as she emerged just beside a closet, where a soldier took issue with her sudden appearance.

“What are you - “

Clara leapt a flying kick into him, and promptly knocked him out and dragged his body into a nearby closet. Sneaking stealthily through the corridor, she came to a checkpoint of sorts, where she could hear footsteps running. She hid herself in a locker, peering out of the metal slats as Sandberg ran in, quite out of breath compared to his more in shape escort formed of soldiers, four to be precise, with two patrolling officers brought into the fold.

“Wait here, Mr Sandberg,” offered one of the two officers whose normal route to patrol was in this underground channel, unlike the others. “I’ll call ahead and make sure the school is safe.”

“I hope so,” panted Klaus, his face florid and his shirt having perspiration stains under his arms.

“Yeah, checking in,” he replied. “Got the package and need clearance to escort.”

He paused, as did Clara with her breathing so she would not be detected.

JOSHUA/Professor X

Joshua was not in as good shape as the soldiers; still he kept his breathing to a minimum so as not to rouse undue suspicion. Almost bored, he looked forward to collecting his pay day for this mission, and glad to have thwarted whatever plot the false photographer had managed to contrive, but who she worked for was another thing indeed…

“What?” shouted the soldier. “Dead?”

“Who’s dead?” Klaus asked. “Not - not the general?”

Joshua tensed, watching the officer hang up the call and nod. Klaus could not have been more flustered; the soldiers on immediate alert.

“We’ll keep you here, Mr Sandberg,” spoke the lead of his escort, as the two ordinary soldiers fanned out to guard either way; the three other soldiers moving into protective position while Joshua’s mind worked frantically, and he took up position too, not wanting to look out of sorts.

If the general was killed, perhaps the false photographer had a more competent partner in crime… the only real option was to strike now.

Clara/SHADOWCAT

Clara felt no love lost to hear General Zaydan was dead; but now Sandberg was stuck in the same room as her, and she strived to think of the best position in which to rush him, phase through the others and kill him before she was shot in her solidified state.

JOSHUA/Professor X

Joshua focused hard with all his being, on the combat knives that all the soldiers present carried, and lifted them with his mind from their sheaths, and with a strangled cry and yelp slit the throats of every soldier present. His knife rose out of its sheath to stab into Sandberg’s face so that blood erupted and splattered the cold concrete floor.

He almost blacked out as he clutched his head and tried to make the pounding stop.

Clara/Shadowcat

In shock, Clara heard the yells and saw the blood, just moments before she had planned to act. The lone soldier left whose knife had levitated to stab Sandberg clutched his head while her target lay dead on the floor. The imposter was clearly capable of similar superpowers like her.

Phasing out of the closet, she ran for the closest corpse, kicking the fallen assault rifle into the air and aiming it at the imposter, who turned at the sudden noise.

She pulled the trigger, but the bullets stayed motionless in the air only for a second as she instinctively phased so as the bullets were redirected through her body and into the wall behind her.

“You’ve got powers, too,” he rose, his eye twitching with the strain in his head.

“Yep,” Clara solidified, but removed the clip and tossed aside the rifle. “Who do you work for?”

“I won’t tell you,” the man told her. “But you’d better tell me.”

She felt the rags split from her face, and the man winced and then, enlightened, to see her face.

“With a power like that, you could well be responsible for some of the targets we’ve been after,” he smirked, appreciating her beauty. “Why don’t you join us?”

“Just so I can live?” Clara asked. “No thanks.”

“Well, you’ve done one half of my job for me,” the man said. “So we’ll get half pay each.”

“If I let you live,” Clara told him.

“You don’t have a choice,” Joshua told her.

“Oh my god!” shouted an echoing voice from down one end of the hall, clearly trumpeting the corpse which lay in his vision.

Clara glanced at the man, and phased through the wall before he could hold her close.


	9. Hokkaido

**HOKKAIDO**

Adam/MYSTIQUE

“Isn’t it incredible?” Adam asked, in Clara’s personal suite of rooms, one such of four overlooking Hokkaido atop a mountain, this GAMA private facility for expensive treatments.

“Sure,” Clara flicked through the channels on the TV, some in Japanese which she couldn’t completely understand. “Why are you still wearing that?”

“I had to to get in,” Adam admitted, his staff robe turning in a flick of blue back to his usual form. “I’m not on the guest list.”

“No,” Clara replied, rising to stretch and pouring herself some green tea. “It’s expensive enough just for one of us.”

“When Yuki Yamazaki arrives, I’ll take her,” Adam nodded.

“And I’ll take Erich Soders,” Clara didn’t bother pouring him a cup, instead finding a manga comic to flick through.

Clara/SHADOWCAT

Once Adam had left, Clara showered and changed into the robe provided by the facility, white with pink cherry blossoms upon a branch. She exited her suite of rooms, out into a corridor where officers strolled and attendants bowed and smiled politely.

“Ogenki desu ka,” they intoned.

“Konnichi wa,” Clara replied.

She took the stairs up to where she could see the inner courtyard, paved with snow and a rock fountain with a bridge spanning a little pond. Gardeners pulled weeds while the hospital director enjoyed the solitude before his special patient was brought in.

Max/NIGHTCRAWLER

Max was perched atop a cliff higher than of upon which GAMA was built, watching as the helicopter arrived to deliver Erich Soders directly into the facility where he would be prepped for surgery and laid on the operating table.

“Soders is here,” Max paged, wearing multiple layers to keep warm. He used his binoculars and saw the cable car rising, with the sharp dyed blonde haircut of a slim Asian woman and her two black suited bodyguards within. “And the hot chick.”

Adam/MYSTIQUE

Adam had read up on Yuki Yamazaki, including her penchant for fugu fish and that she wished to relax in the sauna upon arrival. In the resort uniform disguise, he headed for the onsen, flanked by two attendants who nodded and smiled politely, as he entered the open plan room where many were getting washed or enjoying hand or foot massages.

Outside was a wraparound deck area with hot and cold pools, and a spot for yoga should one wish it. Within the indoors, Adam headed for the sauna, itself in a smaller room with a bathroom beside it. Adam closed the door, seeing the bathroom occupied, and the sauna occupied by two men at present.

He approached a side door where a computerised display, which previously showed a red circle, turned blue and the door opened at his approach. Adam stepped in to a maintenance shaft of sorts, adjusting the temperature on a panel where through one-way glass he could see the men complain as they rose and exited the sauna. Now all it took was patience, and a little time.

Clara/SHADOWCAT

Clara entered the restaurant, where sushi was being prepared and served, alongside tables where patrons were having their meals, and went to the bar to have some sake served warm, and drank it while at the bar watching the snowflakes fall outside the large glass paned windows.

Outside she went into the chilly air near where an arch stood, noticing a resort worker shuffle his tools about as he found a wrench and put it inside, humbly bowing to her and going on with her business.

Quite sure she wasn’t being watched, she crouched down near where he had been fixing the vents, and climbed down a nearby pipe, until she reached a window locked against her which she phased through, into sleeping quarters for the doctors, where one snored loudly.

Quietly she moved through this section, the door opening automatically for her out into the corridor, where the door would not open behind her. The AI in charge of GAMA knew body presences and their associated access keys; much like PAN cards in MGS2.

Clara went down the corridor and through a door, up a couple flights of stairs until she reached the morgue, where two assistants were preparing a body, one holding a camera.

She slipped past these two when their backs were turned and entered the crematorium where the furnaces lay, and to one side was a door secured which could not prevent her phasing through, into a medical supply closet where among other things were the stem cells kept in storage should Soders need more.

Clara retrieved a jar from her pocket and opened the stem cell storage, pouring the contents within and closing it shut, turning to the door once more.

Adam/MYSTIQUE

Adam did not hear footsteps, but watched as Yuki Yamazaki entered the sauna, relieved that it was unoccupied. From behind the one-way glass, he saw her dismiss her guards, who exited the room preceding the sauna.

Adam exited the maintenance closet, where there was only a bathroom and the sauna, both now occupied. Catching sight of Yuki Yamazaki rising from the seat, her moue one of discomfort for having realised how hot it was, Adam held the door tightly shut against her, and her pleadings were lost on his ears as she slumped, lifeless to the ground.

Adam picked up her body over his shoulder, and moved into the maintenance room, a furtive glance behind him as the toilet flushed, and closed the door behind him. He tossed her body in a hamper set aside for towels and changed his form to match Yuki Yamazaki perfectly, including the toweling robe.

Emerging from the maintenance room, he came upon the resident emerging from the bathroom.

“Oh, Miss Yamazaki,” he cowered, fleeing.

Adam appraised him with a cruel smirk, as only Yuki would do in her situation, and emerged out into the onsen area, where the two bodyguards followed her at will.

“I’m done with this kind of relaxation,” Adam announced, in a sharp voice, headed for his new suite of rooms.

Clara/SHADOWCAT

From the room where the stems cells were kept, Clara phased through the door and slipped into the morgue, careful not to disturb the assistants at their work, and across the other side of the room where through these doors she phased was a staircase leading up into near the operating theatre.

As she rose these steps, she noticed a nurse through the glass door move past her work station and into the operating theatre to adjust some tubes attached to Soders.

Clara entered the workstation area from where the nurse had just departed and typed some buttons on the computer, triggering an arrest of the systems vital to keeping Soders alive.

“No pulse,” intoned KAI. “Commencing backup procedure. 3… 2… 1… “

Soders was brought back from the brink, in case this sort of thing should happen.

“Require new stem cell treatment,” spoke KAI, as the nurse nodded, her pulse fluttering after such a surprise, and heading back into her work station area - 

Clara phased out onto the landing where the staircase was held, going down the steps two at a time where the nurse would surely soon be to follow to replace the stem cell canister.

She made her way back through the morgue and phased into the doctor’s sleeping areas, phasing through the wall where she frightened a resident talking on her cell phone, waiting for the toilet below the restaurant to be free.

“You startled me!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t hear you enter!”

“Sorry,” Clara replied, walking up the stairs to enter the restaurant, where her heartbeat began to settle unlike Soders’ would in a matter of minutes, and sat at the counter of the bar where sushi was being prepared, and ordered some to taste, receiving chopsticks.

Adam/MYSTIQUE

“There’s a yoga instructor on the premises,” Adam barked at his bodyguards, as only Yuki Yamazaki could. “I want my instruction to be a private one.”

“Apologies, Miss Yamazaki,” pleaded one of the bodyguards in the palatial suite, where two sat watching TV, two more stood outside on the balcony scanning for threats, and this one stood hesitant before him. “But he’s just called. He’s twisted his ankle and unable to make it - “

“Damn it!” Adam shouted, startling the other bodyguards in the room. He simmered his temper down as best he could. “Then call him here. He may not be able to perform, but I can.”

Clara/SHADOWCAT

Clara sat sipping sake at the counter, when a man took a seat beside her and asked for some sushi. She saw that he had a shaved head with a bead necklace, black singlet and olive shorts, wincing as he pushed himself up on the stool with his legs.

“Man, I’m hungry,” he said, picking up his chopsticks with aplomb and eating feistily. He turned to Clara. “I’m John.”

“Clara,” she told him, thinking of MGS2’s Snake’s real name, as her cup of sake was refilled with a smile and nod. Curious about what he wore, she asked, “What do you do here?”

“I’m a yoga instructor,” he replied as he glanced at her and she faced the wall. “Or supposed to be, till I twisted my ankle.”

“Oh,” Clara replied, little sympathy in her tone. “You should try a massage.”

“Yeah,” he chuckled, glancing at her again. “You here for a checkup, or?”

Clara glanced at him and he faltered under her gaze.

“My bad, didn’t mean to intrude,” he said just as meaningfully. “Can’t be for plastic surgery, though?”

“No,” Clara smiled mirthlessly. “Not today.”

“Heh,” John chuckled. “You’re alright.”

Adam/MYSTIQUE

Adam emerged from the shower, toweling off his hair though the short haircut and bleached blonde was not his style at all. His body was thin, with small breasts but his body razor sharp nonetheless.

“Miss Yamazaki,” knocked the bodyguard on the door.

Adam changed into a toweling robe and emerged, hearing the soothing tones of the TV on a low volume, noticing the flower arrangement in the tokonoma and feeling the heat in the room, glad for the goosebumps traveling his skin.

“Did you hear back?” Adam asked, spritzing perfume from the bureau in the bedroom.

“He’s not picking up his cell phone,” replied the bodyguard.

“Then find him,” Adam marched across the room, red weals on his forehead from the frequency with which he frowned. “He’s in the servant laundry room, or the onsen. Call up every officer to keep an eye out. I’m paying more than enough to stay here!”

“Yes, Miss Yamazaki,” the bodyguard echoed, and replied to his colleagues, and sent out the call.

Clara/SHADOWCAT

“This is my place,” Clara told him, entering her suite as John followed behind, whistling as he glanced around.

“Pretty sweet,” he grinned, taking it all in. “Me, I’ve got a capsule bed in the staff quarters.”

“I’m going to fill the jug,” Clara took it off its mantle, heading into the bathroom while John checked out the fixtures and the ceiling. She took off the lid and turned on the tap, glancing up in the mirror while her hand grew heavier the longer she held onto it.

When she emerged, John was glancing out at the view but from the living room.

“You can take a look on the balcony, if you like,” Clara told him, replacing the jug on its element and flicking the switch. She put green tea in two cups on their saucers and set them aside, a panicked glance to the bed to ensure she had not left any personal items lying around, following him outside into the cold air where he placed his hands on the rail and glanced over the balcony.

_ If he was my target all along, he would be dead half a dozen ways _ , Clara thought to herself, glancing over to the cable car which took guests back into Hokkaido, a perilous descent from this view.

There came a knock on her door but she did not hear it; and when she went back inside, the jug was ready. She poured in both cups and handed his on a saucer, which he gratefully took and blew on it.

“Thanks,” he waited for her to sit down first on the couch, both of them facing the TV which had on some Japanese show but muted and with captions. “So, Clara…”

Clara glanced at him, noticing he still kept his sore leg out of the way.

“What do you do, when you’re not lounging ‘round private medical facilities?

“I’m an artist,” she decided to tell him.

“That’s great,” his eyes lit up when he smiled. “Do you have pictures, or… “?

Clara set her half-drunk cup back on its saucer, staring at the TV for a moment before deciding what she would say next.

“Yes,” Clara replied, rising from the couch, looking down at him. “They’re in the other room.”

Eyes alighting, John rose with her, and she took his hand and led him into the bedroom, where she pressed a button and shades came down like weeping rain over the windows, only the nude light to prepare them for what might come next. Inside was still and warm.

“I had some idea, but,” John sheepishly grinned. “You sure you wanna do this?”

“Yep,” Clara watched him pull off his singlet, and felt a tingle of excitement to see his not super muscled but flat belly, his belly button stretched taut when he leaned, the ripple of muscles and veins evident up his arms.

“Now you,” he grinned, thumbing the waistband of his olive sweatpants so that they came to a rest at his ankles, kicking them off to reveal black boxer briefs concealing his erect bulge.

Clara undid the obi of her kimono, letting it fall as she shrugged it aside, wearing a silken robe underneath. This she took off, as he grinned and stood legs apart like a sailor on desk, his erection more prominent as she wore only her bra and underwear, her feet nude upon the wooden paneled floor having kicked off her sandals.

“I’ve never done this before,” Clara told him, as he raised his eyebrows.

“I’ll be gentle,” he assured her, touching her shoulder as he moved close for a kiss, and she enjoyed his warmth, as he held her closer still, clearly enjoying it.

Adam/MYSTIQUE

“Miss Yamazaki,” spoke one of the bodyguards, while Adam tentatively tried a cigarette from the pack on the desk, promptly coughing like a layman.

“Y-yes?” he stumbled, throwing the pack off the balcony where both bodyguards outside looked mournfully at the loss of secret contraband.

“The yoga instructor’s been found,” replied the bodyguard, as Adam’s eyes lit up. “A worker saw him entering the room of one of the patients, a Miss Hikari down the corridor.”

Adam’s face fell and the bodyguard bowed his head to hide noticing his shame.

“Leave me,” Adam ordered.


End file.
